There's No Way, Right?
by ReachingSteiner
Summary: Of all of the possible couples, Eren Jaeger and Annie Leonhardt seemed the least likely to the other trainees. So they can't possibly be together... right? Rated T for a bit of language.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

As it happens, Connie was the first one to spot it.

It had been during one of the 104th Trainee Corps' weekly hand-to-hand combat drills. These typically consisted of the entire division sweating their asses off in the broiling heat, with most of the trainees performing the drills with varying degrees of finesse, while the rest goofed off when Shadis had his back turned. Connie Springer was one of the latter. He was, at the moment, making faces at Sasha, who covered her mouth as she giggled. Something, however, stopped him right in the middle of his hippo imitation—something he thought he'd never see.

"Hey," he said, staring past Sasha, who looked up at him as she tried to stifle a laugh. "Is that…?"

Sasha looked over her shoulder, following Connie's gaze. It was a pair of trainees—Eren Jaeger and Annie Leonhardt, it looked like.

"Yeah, what about them?" she asked, turning back to Connie.

He pointed at the pair, suddenly eager. "You missed it! They were just—mmph!"

Connie was suddenly interrupted by the hand of Keith Shadis, which had grabbed him by the face and lifted him into the air.

"Whatever Jaeger and Leonhardt were doing," Shadis growled, "it was certainly more productive than you worthless Titan shits. Both of you—including you, potato girl—will be cleaning the latrines tonight, _after _I watch you perform the maneuver you should have been doing _flawlessly!_"

"Y-yes, sir!" Connie gasped, voice muffled by Shadis' hand, as he attempted to perform a midair salute.

"IS YOUR HAND ON THE WRONG SIDE AGAIN?!"

* * *

"…I'm telling you man, it's true!" Connie said to Jean that evening, leaning across the dinner table. "They were holding hands!"

Jean sat back on his bench, bemused. "Jaeger and… Annie?"

Connie took a bite of some kind of leaf—today's dinner was rabbit food, as the trainees had coined it, since there wasn't a scrap of meat to be found in it. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said between chews, "but, I mean, maybe it's an 'opposites attract' kind of thing, you know?"

"…_what?_"

Connie's ears went red, as he mumbled something about it being what Sasha had said.

Marco leaned into the conversation from his seat next to Jean. "Well, they _have _been spending a lot of time together lately. I mean, they're partners in most of the drills we do, right? Especially hand-to-hand combat."

Jean still seemed deep in thought. "Yeah…" he replied, his voice trailing off.

Suddenly, a wicked grin spread across his face, as he turned around in his seat.

"Oh no," Marco sighed, slapping his forehead.

"So, Eren!" Jean called over to the boy in question, loud enough for the whole room to hear. His words dripped with taunting glee. "I hear you've gotten yourself a girlfriend!"

The entire 104th Trainee Corps, now quiet, turned their heads towards Eren to see his response.

Eren didn't even look up from the lettuce he had speared with his fork. "Speaking out of jealousy, Jean?" he said casually. "Mikasa tells me that your attempts to flirt with her have gone over even worse than your test scores."

Never before had Jean Kirschtein gone so quiet or his face turned so red than in that moment, when the entire room erupted in laughter.

He turned back to his friends, who didn't even try to hide their amusement, with a defeated look on his face.

"You know, Jean," Marco chuckled once the room had died down a bit, "have you ever put any consideration towards _not _being an ass to Eren?"

"Shut up," Jean grumbled.

And maybe he imagined it, but as the trainees around them slowly returned to their conversations, Connie swore he saw Annie Leonhardt softly smiling.

* * *

Author's Notes: Oh, Jean. This was really fun to write, so please let me know what you thought of it! I'm looking forward to the next few chapters... *wink wink*

-Steiner


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Mina Carolina was a rather ungraceful sleeper.

This was much to the annoyance of her bunk mate, Annie, who constantly found herself being awoken by wet-sounding snores that made her stomach churn, or an accidental whack in the face by a stray limb as Mina flopped onto her other side. Mina always blushed with embarrassment and gave her a sheepish smile and an apology in the morning, recognizing from the dark circles under her blonde friend's eyes that she'd been unable to sleep… again.

Knowing this, Mina supposed she shouldn't have been surprised when she woke up in the middle of the night to find the other side of the bed cold and empty.

"Mph… Annie?" she mumbled, wiping a string of drool from her mouth. She untangled a hand from the cocoon of blankets around her, reaching out in expectation of bumping into her friend's back and receiving an annoyed "…_what?_" in response. But she felt nothing.

Mina rolled over, her eyes unwilling to open even a crack despite her need to see. "Ann-Ann?" she whispered, knowing that the normal response from Annie upon hearing that nickname was a well-aimed pillow to the face. Again, nothing.

Mina rolled over again, the gears in her head slowly grinding to life as she moved across the bed—before abruptly falling over the side with an undignified squeak. She crashed to the ground, unhurt but very much awake by this point. She squirmed out of the covers and gathered herself to her feet, mentally huffing over how stupid gravity was.

Well, too bad Annie had missed this display.

* * *

Mina tiptoed through the deserted halls, hugging herself to keep warm as she glanced around for her absent blonde friend. The last thing Mina wanted to do was stumble into Shadis at this time of night, as the punishment for being out of bed would be several torturous hours of scrubbing the halls of the dormitory—but her natural curiosity propelled her to go looking for her bunkmate. It reminded her of the times when she would play hide-and-seek with her dad; it's not like he went to much trouble to hide himself, but her natural sleuthing skills had her discovering him within a minute each time. A fond grin spread across Mina's face, and she hurried down the hall, eager to unearth Annie's whereabouts.

First, the downstairs lounge. A quick scan revealed nothing but pillows and a thin trail of crumb-toting ants as the only inhabitants of this room.

The mess hall was closest to that. Moonlight filtered through the series of dusty windows and illuminated the interior, revealing the worn-down tables to be bare of activity.

Perhaps the bathrooms. Peeking around the corner, Mina was disappointed to find that not even the rusting faucets were out of line.

Maybe in a storage closet? Brooms, buckets, old textbooks, a couple of spare uniforms… the sight of a mattress covered in stains made Mina quickly shut the door, not wanting to think about what might have caused the discolorations.

Damn, what was left? Mina strolled down a corridor, deep in thought. Had Annie completely disappeared? No, there was no way Mina had missed something… she'd been more thorough in her search than Armin while cleaning his Maneuver Gear, and that was saying something. Maybe Annie had returned to the bunkroom while Mina was occupied with her investigation? That's probably what it was… but what if it wasn't?

Turning a corner, Mina was so deep in thought that she didn't even notice the pair of entangled trainees in front of her until she'd nearly walked right into them.

Mina froze, her pepper-colored eyes widening in surprise.

It was the shock-inducing—but nonetheless unmistakable—sight of Eren Jaeger and _Annie-freaking-Leonhardt _arduously making out, right in front of her.

Neither of them noticed their abrupt spectator, continuing with their… activity… unashamedly. Annie's hair was out of its routine bun, splayed all around her head and face as Eren's fingers ran through it lustfully. Their arms were wrapped so tightly around each other that it was a wonder they could breathe, especially considering that they hadn't separated for air in the past minute—wait, had Mina been standing here a whole minute?

She made for a stealthy retreat back behind the corner, but the sudden creak of a floorboard under her foot prompted both of the trainees before her to suddenly glance over, finally aware of their unexpected company.

"Um," Mina coughed awkwardly in her hand.

Annie was staring at her, cerulean eyes wide open, as a crimson blush quickly spread across her face—Eren, however, noticing Annie's sudden embarrassment, grinned widely as he held in a laugh.

Mina took another step back. "I'm just… gonna go back to bed," she hurried, pointing down the hall. "You two... uh... continue with whatever you were doing—which I totally didn't see, by the way, I was never even here, I was totally the opposite of here. Um… bye!"

As Mina took off down the hall, rushing to avoid the awkwardness of the situation, she couldn't help but overhear Eren's quip to Annie:

"You know, you're really cute when you're blushing."

Mina could only assume the thump that followed was Annie's fist driving into Eren's midsection.

* * *

"If there's one thing I'll never get used to here, it's this porridge," Mina joked, glancing across the table at her blonde friend the following morning. Annie's head slouched against her hand, barely propped up from falling straight into the untouched bowl of porridge in front of her. The dark circles around her azure eyes were even worse than normal, but instead of the blasé expression Annie typically wore, she actually seemed somewhat… content. There was no smile, but Mina knew her friend well enough to be able to read her emotions at a glance.

Mina leaned forward, grinning secretively. "Let me guess… you're thinking about him, aren't you?"

"If by 'him' you mean the mutated slop in my bowl, then yes," Annie mumbled tiredly.

Mina giggled. "You know who I mean, Miss Leonhardt, and there's no chance in hell you can deny it."

Annie glanced up at her smug friend. "If you even think about teasing me over this or telling anyone, I will forcibly replace your teeth with your toenails."

Mina leaned back, cringing reflexively. "Point taken."

They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, Mina gulping down another spoonful of porridge.

"So…"

Annie sighed. "Forget it, Mina."

Mina crossed her arms, pouting. "Come on! I won't pester you about it, I just want to know, y'know, how it happened."

The blonde rubbed her temples, hoping to get some of the tiredness out of her system. "Not talking about it."

"You're really gonna be like that?"

"Yep."

Mina sighed, picking her tray up and standing. "Fine," she replied, beginning to walk towards the trash bin.

She paused for a moment. "But for the record…"

Annie glanced up at her friend.

Mina winked. "It's about time you got some action, Ann-Ann."

As she strolled away, Mina grinned smugly at Annie's frustrated sigh.

* * *

Author's note: Mina deserved more screen time, dammit! I hope I did her justice here, she and Annie are awesome to write. Anyway, please review and let me know what you thought, I appreciate all of your feedback :)

-Steiner


End file.
